In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard

I listened to In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard because it fulfilled the prompt for a book about teen angst in the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. 

In this book, we have a fourteen-year-old girl growing up in Zanesville, Illinois. We never learn her name, but she shares the name of one of the girls in Little Women and I deduce it is Jo, like the author, but that's me making a lot of assumptions. ANYWAY, this girl and her best friend Felicia (Flea) go on adventures in Zanesville. There's a babysitting fiasco that involves the fire department, sick kittens they're hiding from their parents, and lots of drama about boys. 

I found this book to be funny, particularly the opening babysitting scene. There are concerning parts, mainly centered around our main character's alcoholic father, but nothing particularly violent happened on page. I thought the observational writing was sharp and witty and I found myself nodding in agreement to so much of what it was like to be a young teen. It has a Mary Jane feel to it, although maybe that's just because there are teenage girls in the 1970s and babysitting. 

Oh, I wanted to talk about the narration. Beard reads the audiobook herself and I have to admit that it made me happy. The way she says water (werter) and how it sounds like her tongue gets tangled up in her mouth when she says the word cereal. And how sometimes I just had no idea what she was saying (see my note below on whether it was wide or white). Just such a great representation of how people from southern Illionois speak. Seriously. The narration was perfection. 

I'd recommend it. 4/5 stars

(If you don't want to read this, but want to read a powerfully sad article about a failing marriage, a dying dog, and an event at work that none of us would ever want to live through, click on this link. Jo Ann Beard writes beautifully.)

Lines of note:

I have an affinity for anything that has peeled off fur or looks terminal, or, for that matter, for anything that seems to notice me. (timestamp 57:20)

Ha! I was exactly like this as a young person. Sick bird? Let me at it. A rando boy gives me the time of day? Obviously I'm in love. 

Mr. Wilton, the teacher, pays attention only to the first chair musicians and the percussionists, a gang of unruly thick-waisted boys wielding drumsticks, gongs, and triangles. (timestamp 1:41:59) 

YES!! This was band. My band teacher was Mr. Wilson, though. This is hilarious. I didn't know the band class experience was so ubiquitous. 

I'd like to be the kind of person who does something weird and not become weird because of it, but that's out of reach for me. I am what I do at this point and if I do this, I'm done for. Once I march in their parade, I will be in it forever... (timestamp 1:49:45)

I think I am just a weird person. 

One of the more memorable things I ever read back here were the Cliff's Notes for Moby-Dick, which I found in a box of old comic books my mother brought home. It was a gripping story, but also sickening. Mostly what I took from it was that nobody on a whaling ship has much sympathy for a whale. (timestamp 5:05:50) 

Moby-Dick is everywhere!!!!

Hat mentions (why hats?):

little hat I wore in kindergarten that had yarn pigtails and a girl's face embroidered on the back of the head (timestamp 1:09:52)

the hats are hard blue cylinders with a short white brim (timestamp 1:39:14) - I honestly can't tell from accent if it's white or wide, so if I got it wrong, I apologize

First problem: the hat is resting on my ears (timestamp 1:39:34)

The hats are at least eight inches tall (timestamp 1:39:59)

In the hat, she looks at tall as the Empire State Building (timestamp 1:49:27)

our instruments and our hats (timestamp 1:52:14)

under their hats (timestamp 1:55:58)

What about when I was a kindergartner and had on my favorite little hat with yarn pigtails and a face embroidered on the back and a sixth grade boy who I was enchanted with started teasing me by speaking only to my hat?  (timestamp 2:09:47)

paper hat askew (timestamp 2:33:09)

man's grey hat (timestamp 3:15:28)

fishing hat (timestamp 3:23:37)

vinyl Carnaby Street hat (timestamp 4:04:10) 

birthday hats (timestamp 5:07:37)

Easter hat (timestamp 6:19:19)

grey hat (timestamp 6:57:10)

taking his hat out of his pocket (timestamp 7:28:15)

eyeliner and a hat like the one they tried on me (timestamp 8:14:14)

fishing hats (timestamp 8:27:58)

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Does anyone have a disastrous babysitting story from their youth? Did you ever have to call the police or fire department? Do you say the word cereal as if your tongue is all tangled up?